Japan in Winter: Birding on Ice Set Departure Tour 6Th – 19Th February, 2016 Extension: 19Th – 20Th February, 2016
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Japan in Winter: Birding on Ice Set departure tour 6th – 19th February, 2016 Extension: 19th – 20th February, 2016 Tour leaders: Charley Hesse & Sam Woods Report by Charley Hesse Photos by Sam Woods, Mark Sullivan & Charley Hesse Watching Red-crowned Cranes dancing on the snow is on the bucket list for many birders (Sam Woods) For the fourth year in a row, we beat our previous year’s trip list with an all-time record of 185 species. Every year, the Winter Japan tour is slightly different, and this year’s could be summed up by ‘balmy weather’ and rarities. We had an almost clean sweep of available targets; and by gathering valuable gen from other birding groups and Japanese birders, we chased down some real MEGAs, like Siberian Crane, Swan Goose and Scaly-sided Merganser. Of course we also had the expected Hokkaido highlights like the mammoth Blakiston’s Fish-Owl coming in close to feed on fish, Red-crowned Cranes on the snow and close encounters with Steller’s Sea-Eagles. A bit of good luck and flexibility with our birding schedules meant that we went out on all 3 of our pelagic excursions on the main tour. Although the ice flow hadn’t arrived yet, we had a great boat ride to photograph Steller’s Sea-Eagles & White-tailed Eagles; we managed to get out to sea from the Nemuro Peninsular to photograph several species of alcids and we had beautiful conditions in Kyushu to see the Japanese Murrelet. Our redesigned extension including a morning’s birding on Miyakejima worked spectacularly well as we picked up the endemics there and also great seabirds, including 3 species of albatrosses on the way back. This year’s tour was a tremendous success birdwise, but the unique Japan experience also never fails to enchant visitors. Tropical Birding www.tropicalbirding.com 1 MAIN TOUR 6th February - Tokyo to Karuizawa Because all the tour participants had arrived yesterday, it meant that we were able to bring the start time forward and include an extra birding site. As a few interesting species had been seen there recently, we started our birding one of the Tokyo parks called Akigase, After parking the vehicles we got out and started our birding in earnest with Dusky Thrush, White-cheeked Starling, Oriental Greenfinch and Rustic Buntings. We saw some local birders nearby and found that they were looking at some rather attractive Hawfinches. One of our main targets in the park was Long-eared Owl and one of the Japanese birders kindly took us to the spot where they had just seen it. They were roosting in some bamboo and one was in view. We had great scope views and even got some photos. We met another local birder who had just come from the nearby reservoir where there were many people twitching a rare duck. This sounded interesting and we went to check it out. On the way had scope views of a Brown- headed Thrush and also saw Black faced, Meadow and Reed Buntings. The rare duck turned out to be a Canvasback which is a vagrant from the US. The localised Dusky Thrush is a common species throughout Japan (Sam Woods) We located the line of bird photographers and took our place next to them. It was supposed to be mixed in with many Common Pochard and a few Tufted Ducks but most of the birds had their bills tucked away. After patiently waiting, the bird was relocated and we had good views, although it would only take its bill out for short periods. Also on the lake we saw Green-winged (or Eurasian) Teal, many Great Crested & a single Eared Grebe plus some stunning Falcated Ducks. Our time had run out here and we started making our way back to the vehicle. On the way we had great views of a beautiful male Daurian Redstart, brief views of a pair of Long-tailed Rosefinches and one person even saw a male Red-flanked Bluetail. We met a friendly British birder with whom we shared some gen, then finally had our first Bull-headed Shrike and Pygmy Woodpecker. We went for a brief convenience store lunch before setting off for Karuizawa which was to be our base for the next 2 days. We arrived early enough to take a short walk which produced Brown Dipper and the endemic Japanese Woodpecker, both of which were major targets for us here and nice to get under our belts so soon. We went to our very traditional hot spring hotel and had time to relax in our Japanese-style tatami rooms before an extravagant 9-course Japanese meal. I’m not even joking. Tropical Birding www.tropicalbirding.com 2 7th February – Karuizawa & Toden Lake Our main target at Karuizawa was Copper Pheasant, a stunning and very shy endemic that can be difficult to find. We took a pre-breakfast walk along the forest road which was invigorating to say the least. It was so cold that most birds hadn’t started moving around yet, but we would have been happy just to see 1 pheasant. We did glimpse an interesting race of Eurasian Wren. We walked back down for breakfast after which we spent some time by the wonderful feeders at the hotel where we saw some great birds, like Long-tailed Rosefinch, Japanese Accentor, Hawfinch and Japanese Grosbeak. We saw a couple of endemic Japanese Squirrels and there were even a pair of Eastern Spot-billed Ducks paddling on the pond in front. After breakfast we took another walk up to yacho-no-mori which had warmed up a bit now had more bird activity. This time we had good views of Great Spotted Woodpecker, Brown Dipper and Eurasian Jay as well as a nice mixed flock with Japanese & Long-tailed Tits, Pygmy Woodpecker and Eurasian Nuthatch. Pheasants can be fairly predictable, and I aimed to be at a particular spot at the same time a group had seen Copper Pheasant a couple of days before. We rounded a corner and a small track lead down to the river. I peered over the edge of the road and a female Copper Pheasant shot up and flew along the road. I shouted for everybody to look along and miraculously everybody got on the bird. We chased after it but it was long gone. We all had decent flight views which was more than most people get. The endemic Japanese Accentor (Sam Woods) We drove down to the lower part of town and checked out some open fields down there, but everything was cold and snow covered and we saw almost nothing. So next we drove on to a neighbouring town of Saku where we had lunch followed by a visit to Toden Lake. This reservoir sometimes harbours large numbers of ducks, but today there were only a few. Despite the low numbers, we saw Gadwall, Eurasian Wigeon, Common Pochard, Tufted Duck, Common Merganser and Eurasian Coot. Next we scanned the river and found Little Grebe and Green-winged Teal plus our target Long-billed Plover which was very close. Then the strangest thing happened. A Bull-headed Shrike flew in and viciously attached one of the pair. It saw on top of it and almost looked like it was trying to drown the poor thing.It finaly got away and we all gave a round of applause. We walked along river looking for more new birds and sound Meadow & Rustic Buntings, Japanese Wagtail and even flushed a pair of Japanese Green Pheasant. We went back to the hotel for dinner, and later took a short night drive in the lower part of town. In a patch of forest bordering the road I finally found some eye shine and we got on 3 Racoon Dogs, a rarely seen mammal in Japan. On the way back we also saw a Red Fox before we called it a day. Tropical Birding www.tropicalbirding.com 3 8th February – Karuizawa to Komatsu via Jigokudani We took one last walk up the forest road to try and get better views of Copper pheasant. Some people elected to stay by the feeders and get better views and photos of some of the birds there. We walked all the way up to where we flushed one yesterday but failed to see it again. We did see the endemic race of Eurasian Wren much better, plus more Brown Dippers, Eurasian Jay and our first Coal Tit,. After breakfast we had our last look at the feeders, with many of the same birds as yesterday, including Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Eurasian Jay, Willow, Varied & Japanese Tits, Eurasian Nuthatch, Oriental Greenfinch and Japanese Accentor. We left our hot spring hotel in Karuizawa and set off for the Snow Monkey Park at Jigokudani a couple of hours away. It is a very famous spot to see the Japanese Macaque and there were a surprising number of tourists from around the world. It was a 2km walk and quite icy in places but most of us were wearing crampons or spikes on our boots so it was no problem. When we got up to the park, the monkeys performed very well, jumping in and out of the hot springs and rolling around it the snow. We saw a full range of behaviours including the young monkeys playing together and the adults allogrooming. After walking back down, we started our 4 hour drive to the city of Komatsu on the west coast of Japan, our base for the next 2 days. After settling in to our hotel, we all went out for a very fun meal where we ordered sushi on a touch screen.